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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Drab 4

Back in high school, I was a social outcast. Spit upon, reviled. I wish I could say I was exaggerating. And one thing that fueled my hatred of my classmates was my love of heavy metal. From ages13 to 18, before I figured myself out, metal was all consuming force in my life.

I started off w/ the light stuff, Skid Row, Extreme, Kik Tracee. Heavy on the pretty and cheese factor. When I began my love affair w/ angst, the music I loved grew darker and more complex, Voivod, Pantera, Danzig.

My enthusiasm for metal waned over time. It was something I looked upon w/ embarrassed fondness.

Then I met Sexybeast, a metal fanatic (though to be fair he loves Tom Waits and The Beatles too!). Being around each other, I was re-introduced into something I thought was long dead inside of me.

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of seeing Type O Negative. Self described as "goth-adelic", these boys are moody, hate filled creatures of the night. But the melodies, the lyrics! I was back in my 18 year old mind and it was GOOD. Having conquered many personal demons (and a serious cocaine addiction), Peter Steele sang every word w/a beautiful anguish that he has not been able to manage in many years.

On Sunday, we saw a double header of Mastodon, a weirdly multi-faceted band, that writes all concept albums. They performed Crack the Skye in it's entirety against the back drop of short film that followed the story. They really are visual band. I really couldn't explain the story, check Wikipedia, but it involves astral projection and Rasputin.

Many of you know my love of the one of the funniest adult cartoons in human existence, Metalocalypse. OMG! OMG! OMG! They were so fucking awesome!! They performed my fave song "Murmaider", a song about mermaid murder. Brutal! Essentially, the real band played on stage while Dethklok performed on a big screen behind them.